WELL, if you know your history then you’d know that Temasik, before it became Singapura or Singapore, was part of what is today the modern Johor, the southernmost state in Malaysia. A palace official back then, yes, this was in the early 19th century, had sold the island to Stanford Raffles. And that was that, Johor had lost the island forever. Or so we thought! For if Bloomberg is to be believed, we suddenly know now that there is still a part of Singapore that we can say Johor actually owns, through the TMJ, or the Crown Prince, the son of our current King. The island may have been sold to the colonial for a paltry sum but the tract of land that Johor still owns in the Republic through TMJ is worth a bloody fortune if, it has to be repeated and stressed, Bloomberg is to be believed.
How much, you ask? Well the news wire didn’t say (maybe it didn’t know) but it claimed in its news report today that the taxes that Johor or the.prince would have to pay if the sale goes through is in excess of 1 billion.
Sing dollar.
Insane.
I’m not giving y’all the link to the story, do a bit of work and go find it yourselves, ok. I am sure you guys have lots of questions, but please, be respectful if you want to ask them or leave any comment here.
I myself have so many questions but I left just one in the Bloomberg’s comment box:
Is it not state land?
I think that is everyone’d question, too. I mean, given the history of the sale of Singapore, to Raffles, and today that red dot on the map has a GDP like 16 times larger than Johor’s, it is fair, I think, to wonder.
If it belongs to the TMJ and has nothing to do with the state we’d still like to know how a member of our royalty could end up with that tract of land that is worth so much. Where is that land, when was it acquired, why are we (or the TMJ) selling it, who is going to pay the taxes, and how are the Johor people going to benefit.
Transparency is a pain in the ass but it is necessary. And it will make it easier for us to explain these things to our anakcucu di kemudian hari … – September 3, 2026
Datuk Ahirudin Attan, better known as Rocky Bru, is executive director at Big Boom Media which publishes Scoop.